Fuel Cells, which electrochemically bring energy out of hydrogen, are as quiet, clean and mechanically simple as a battery but as easy to refuel as an internal-combustion engine. However, Fuel Cells have always been hampered by high manufacturing costs. "If it doesn’t have the right cost, nobody can afford to use it," states Williams. "If we get them widely deployed, there is a cost-savings potential."

A growing number of companies are confident they are now on the verge of bringing prices for Fuel Cells down to levels where they can compete—if not with car engines, then with conventional electric-power generating equipment. If the market for such units takes off, that success could very well trickle down to the manufacture of other mass-market Fuel Cells for homes and even individual appliances. The resulting "hydrogen economy," where nature’s most abundant substance replaces fossil fuels would eventually provide significant efficiencies and cleaner air. "Because of their excellent environmental performance, Fuel Cells support Presidential initiatives such as Clear Skies and Global Climate Change," comments Williams. "I work on the stationary Fuel Cell Program and we’re mainly interested in putting Fuel Cells in hospitals, residential homes and other facilities," explains Williams.

In his position with NETL, Williams is responsible for budgets and planning for the DOE Fossil Energy (FE) Program. The DOE , the largest financer of fuel cell technology in the U.S., has allotted $50 million to the FE program for stationary, high-temperature Fuel Cells. Couple that with the growing number of fuel cell development teams involving all major automotive firms estimates are that a billion dollars a year is now being spent on Fuel Cell research and development.

Another important Fuel Cell R&D effort is the Solid State Energy Conversion Alliance (SECA), a collaborative effort that is coordinated between NETL and The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). SECA is an alliance of industries, universities, government agencies and other research organizations that are moving to accelerate the commercialization of low-cost solid oxide Fuel Cells over the next decade. According to Dr. Williams, "SECA has a target efficiencies of 40-60% for individual electric systems and ultimate efficiencies of up to 70-80% for hybrid systems, with near-zero NOx and SOx emissions comments Williams. Our goal is to reach $400 per kilowatt by 2010."

It is unlikely that a hydrogen dynasty is by any means a sure thing. In addition to a host of technical kinks that remain to be ironed out, there are also infrastructure challenges such as how to make pure hydrogen available to consumers and where to get Fuel Cells serviced. There are even fundamental questions about the market potential of Fuel Cells—namely; will the public be willing to dump familiar technologies in favor of Fuel Cells? Many experts believe it will. "After years of really intense research, we don’t see any roadblocks that we don’t know how to get around to converting energy systems to Fuel Cells on a large scale," says Williams. "Environmentally, there’s nothing like them and for that reason alone they’re the right thing. We’re finally focusing on the right goals and that’s encouraging."

2 Primary Source: Dr. Mark C. Williams, Fuel Cells Product Manager at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), Strategic Center for Natural Gas. Dr. Williams was recently elected co-chair of the Fuel Cell Seminar, the largest international meeting on fuel cells, for 2002. Mr. Williams received a Ph.D. in Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley where he studied under a Jane Lewis Fellowship and completed his B.A., B.S., and M.S. at West Virginia University in Morgantown, WV.